We’re living in quite the golden age of reality television. Wanna watch housewives fight? There’s a show for that. Excited to see people survive on an island with few resources? We’ve got you covered. Desperate to watch couples pair up after only a day of knowing one another? Don’t worry, there’s a show for you.
When it comes to competition-based shows, you have even more to choose from as you can watch anything from cooking to singing to dancing to baking. However, even the most niche reality shows have their issues and Fox’s The Masked Singer is not above being a bit imperfect.
The Masked Singer is a singing competition show where celebrities dress up in elaborate and downright wild costumes before singing on stage. Then, after the performance is done and some biographical clues have been given, the celebrity judge panel has to correctly guess who is singing under the giant mascot head every celebrity has to wear.
For the most part, the performances are pretty hard to lock down a guess for. Because a lot of the celebrities who perform are not well-known for their singing ability, it’s harder to figure out who they could be—and that’s really the core of the show.
I’ve come to the conclusion, then, that a famous singer with an incredibly distinct voice shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the show because their voice is so well-known, it takes the mystery out of the show.
I came to this conclusion after watching a clip from the Season 10 premiere episode of The Masked Singer. In the episode, a celebrity dressed up in a rock ‘n’ roll mouse fursuit took the stage to sing “What About Love” by Heart. The performance itself was so good as the celebrity had the voice of an angel, but it took all of five seconds of hearing them sing to figure out that the person behind the mouse mask was Demi Lovato.
Lovato, who has been making music since her Disney Channel days, has always had an incredibly unique voice and range that makes her stand out from her peers. No matter if she’s singing her original work or a cover song, you know when Lovato is singing because of her one-of-a-kind, powerhouse of a voice. I’m not being dramatic when I say this, but no one sounds like Lovato, so putting her on a singing show and doing nothing to try to alter her voice isn’t that exciting because people know Lovato from her voice. It would be incredibly hard to mix her voice up with anyone else’s.
Lovato isn’t the only singer with a unique voice who’s donned a costume to be on the show. Grammy Award-winning R&B icon Patti LaBelle made an appearance during the show’s second season where she sang “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton, “Alone” by Heart, and “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor.
Much like Lovato, LaBelle couldn’t hide her iconic and recognizable voice because it has too much of a unique charm to it. The audiences and most of the judges instantly knew who she was during the first notes of Parton’s track and only grew more confident the longer LaBelle sang. Though her performance was wonderful to watch, the lack of mystery regarding her identity still detracted from the experience of the show.
I’m not saying that singers shouldn’t go on the singing reality show, but I do stand by the idea that singers with incredibly unique and instantly recognizable voices shouldn’t go on shows like The Masked Singer because it undermines the whole point of what, at the end of the day, is a guessing game.
(featured image: Fox)
